Liberty. It’s a simple idea, but it’s also the linchpin of a complex system of values and practices: justice, prosperity, responsibility, toleration, cooperation, and peace. Many people believe that liberty is the core political value of modern civilization itself, the one that gives substance and form to all the other values of social life. They’re called libertarians.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Obama: Chavez Not 'Serious' Threat

Hugo Chavez might be shipping fuel to the murderous Syrian regime. He might be helping the genocidal Iranian regime build a missile base in Venezuela that can target the United States directly. He might have supported Muammar Qaddafi, just as he has supported terrorism in Columbia and incited hatred
against Israel. He might have tried to undermine constitutional
democracy in Honduras and across the continent. He might hate America
and launch into anti-American diatribes at every opportunity. But
according to President Barack Obama, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is
not a "serious" national security threat.

President Obama, speaking to Miami journalist Oscar Haza, said that
"what Mr. Chávez has done over the last several years has not had a
serious national security impact on us." If the above (abridged) list of
actions against the U.S. and its allies does not constitute "a serious
national security impact," then nothing is. The U.S. has gone to war
over less--most recently in Libya, where Obama acted because of the threat of atrocities.
The president said that his main concern in Venezuela was the quality
of its democracy--and yet one of his first foreign policy acts as
president was to greet Chavez warmly at the Summit of the Americas in
April 2009. Showing such support for a would-be dictator sent exactly
the opposite signal about Venezuelan democracy.
If Chavez is not a "serious" national security threat, President Obama is not serious about national security.